Dir En Grey

DIR EN GREY (formerly stylized as Dir en grey) is a Japanese alternative metal / avant-garde metal band formed in Osaka, Japan in 1997 from the disbanded visual kei band La:Sadie's, that have maintained a consistent lineup of 京 (Kyo) on vocals, 薫 (Kaoru) and Die on guitar, Toshiya on bass and Shinya on drums.

Originally a visual kei band, the band has dropped that style since around 2005 when they released their fifth full-length album, Withering to death. Read more on Last.fm

Dir En Grey on Thrash Hits

June 19th, 2013

You know the drill by now. This is the Thrash Hits Festival Splash Page and this is where you’ll find some of the most comprehensive coverage of Download Festival 2013 that you don’t have to pay for. It’s here!

June 14th, 2013

Dir En Grey are basically so massive in Japan that you can’t even imagine it. We’re not even joking. Go YouTube some of their live shows if you don’t believe us. MENTAL. Anyway, they were on the Zippo Encore aka the Second stage here at Download Festival 2013.

May 1st, 2013

The Japanese metallic monolith that is Dir En Grey have had a fairly minimal penetration into the tight-knit UK music community considering the number, and calibre, of their records over the course of the last sixteen years. 2013 sees the release of an EP called The Unraveling, a seven track record that, despite increasing momentum into a metal scene dominated by Western publicity machines, is more a retrospective consolidation of their swollen discography than a push towards a greater consciousness.

February 18th, 2013

Bloody heck, that’s an awful lot of new bands to add all at once. Not that we’re complaining, mind you – the less inane line-up announcement news pieces we have to try to find new and inventive intros to write for is always a welcome development here at Thrash Hits. You can check the full list of additions to the Download Festival 2013 line-up after the jump.

August 6th, 2010

It’s time for another Thrash Hits festival splash page – and this time it’s for Sonisphere! All of our Sonisphere Festival 2010 coverage from the weekend will be linked to on this here post, so make sure you bookmark it as it’s all you’re going to need need. That means individual band coverage (interviews, photos, setlists and maybe even some reviews), all the dodgy rumours and salacious gossip we overhear, and every lewd photo of fit girls frolicking about at Knebworth we can rustle up will be here.

August 4th, 2010

The first time we heard Dir En Grey, we thought they were singing in Japanese. They were singing in English. That makes us a bit racist, right? Soz. The first time we spoke to Dir En Grey we asked them to mash up a panda with a brick (video below) and some people thought we were being racist even though pandas are Chinese. Dur.

April 7th, 2010

Sonisphere Festival has just announced another 12 bands for Knebworth – and we’ve got to admit, we’re just a little underwhelmed. First off, Pendulum are the “Special Guests” (i.e., they’re headlining the smaller of the two stages) on Friday 30 July. Which is Iron Maiden day. Hmmmmm.